The End of All Things
by Dragoon Drake
Summary: This is a SciFi FFIX based story, revolving around Pilot Tyr Redblade, and his adventures on the Daguerro Liberation Forces Carrier, Wasp. Please Please Please Review and give me some feedback!
1. Prologue

About the story:

Final Fantasy IX was released in July 7, 2000 for the Play Station by Squaresoft as the final Final Fantasy to be released for the PS1, and brought back memories of the original Final Fantasy's. The sub-title was 'The Crystal Comes Back', reminding us of the earlier quests.

This story is set about three-hundred years after the mist war, I will attempt to keep from spoiling the story, but it will pick up, chapter one introduces the main character, Tyr Redblade, and his background, chapter two actually dives into the story.

About the Author:

I used to write Final Fantasy fan fiction under another pen name, but forgot the password, and the e-mail. So I am going to be posting under this new one, and reposting my old stories after a few changes, as my writing style has greatly improved after 3 years.

The ship cut through the icy blackness of space, long in prow, its sharp, new-age design radiating the glory of a powerful, ruthless ship. The beauty was only skin deep… The H.M.S.S. Revelation was the last ship built of a failing nation; the Empire had steamrolled over the other three nations on its planet early on, long before the advent of space travel. Lindblum, Condie Petie and Burmecia, all found themselves part of the Imperial Empire of Alexandria. Now the internal divisions were tearing it apart…

Inside the weapons room, only the damned work, practicing the loading and unloading of the sensitive ammunition, whose temper would be quick and furious. The only humans in this section sat safely in the next room, watching from the safety of a reinforced security booth. Here was the dominion of the Qu, the genderless race who had submitted to the Alexandrian army nearly three centuries ago. Now they were deemed to be expendable, and found themselves working the nastiest shifts in the worst of conditions. Many had not received an education, and were paid 20 credits a day, something the lowliest non-commissioned human received an hour.

The Qu could not vote in national elections, own property besides clothes and food, and they did not qualify for government benefits. If one was to be injured, it would not receive a pension, and if it died it would not receive a burial… it would receive a kick out the airlock.

Up the social latter a rung sat the Condie Petians, the short dwarflike people who had also been 'integrated' during the Great War. They were often used as fodder in boarding parties, sent in as grunts to bludgeon their enemies with hand-to-hand weapons for fear that they might shoot themselves with a weapon of greater caliber.

They are paid only 30 credits a day, but often found themselves unable to spend the money, their death rate being at about 75. In fact, the government often received the money back only days after paying them, because when a Condie Petian was killed, its money and property were sent back to the government. This meant that frequently, the same amount of money was sent to several workers several times before being recycled back into the economy.

The Burmecians had it better off then most; they could own property, although they couldn't vote. They received 10 credits an hour, and sometimes held officer positions, depending on the captain, but were usually commanders of boarding parties. It was ironic that the Burmecian women (Alexandria being female oriented, with the women of the family being the most influential) had it off worst. Often finding themselves as maids, cooks, or 'company,' and making almost nothing in terms of relative wages.

The ship had been put on alert. The radar had picked up 'ghosts,' or what could be the shrouds of vessels in the nearby asteroid field. Actually, it could have been anything, misshapen rocks or derelicts; the radar was only sophisticated enough to pick out the metallic profile of the object, nothing more.

Tyr Redblade sat in his fighter, listening to the other pilots over the radio going over some new tactic or event in the empire. Taking off his oxygen mask, he turned around to check the rear weapon control console.

He was one of 14 Burmecian fighter pilots on the ship, a subordinate group of the 32 Human pilots. He was one of the lucky ones. The job paid well, all he really had to do was bring a book along and sit for the next 12 hours before the next shift came on duty. He was already 8 hours through, laying back; he tried to drift off to sleep…

Suddenly the ship rocked violently, red lights flashed down the launch bay and klaxons were going off in his cockpit. Switching on the main power and weapons, he felt the hum of the micro nuclear reactor, the feeling as the engines came alive when he pushed the throttle to the afterburners. The fighter sped along the guiding rails, ion engines burned violently blue, shooting it out the bay and into space.

"Two enemy contacts, Guerian in origin, engage and dispatch with the extreme prejudice." came the orders over the radio. The Guerians were terrorists, who sought to sacrifice as many lives as they could to their god, they would kill civilian, military, Human or Burmecian... Or so the empire's newscasts said… Bringing his fighter to bear, he saw two cargo ships headed towards the ship. They bristled with weapons of every caliber, most being older then fifty years old.

Flying toward it like a bat out of hell, he missed the wall of projectiles they shot up toward him. Bringing his ship around, he was granted an unobstructed view of the massive ship's stern. The engines were chemical engines, and took up too much space to allow for rear defenses.

Watching as the target indicator lit up a brilliant red, he depressed the trigger, and two missiles flashed from under his wing, and toward the ship. He saw the dorsal thrusters light up, and attempt to move the ship away, but to no avail. The twin fiery arrows pierced the nozzles of the engines, and lit up space with a fiery explosion of propellants and oxygen.

With half the ship in flames, and the other half drifting in space, he turned the fighter toward the second cargo ship. He spotted three small burning hulks, obviously the remains of some of the fighters who had not been able to dodge the murderous fire. With the port side of the second enemy ship in sight, he opened up with a hail of white hot machine gun shells, which pinged off the enemies' hull at odd angles, a few digging in with releases of air as the compartments inside began to depressurize. The ship's weapons trained on his fighter, and began to chase his fighter, Tyr was out of missiles, and looked like he was out of luck…

Suddenly, a brilliant flash emanated from the Revelation, a quick, decisive shot which slammed into the cargo vessel with such force that it penetrated through to the other side. Not to mention the fact that now the vessel was spinning at an odd angle, unable to bring its weapons to bear. Tyr could see the hole, a through and through job by the massive forward Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, which shot rods of steel at such velocities that they became semi-plasmatic in state, and penetrated almost any unprotected object.

He brought the fighter to a standstill on the Revelations landing strip a few minutes later, alongside three other fighters. A little more then 2/5 of their company now drifted in space alongside the countless other souls who had lost their lives onboard the other ships in battles both recent and long forgotten.

Waiting until the metal doors closed, and air pressurized in the bay, he opened the cockpit and jumped down. The outside of his fighter was burnt and several holes were oozing engine coolant. His left wing and left stabilizer had been nearly shot off. He had been lucky, if the shots had been two feet to the right, they would have passed right through the glass and killed him.

He heard a shout, and looked back in time to find himself in the embrace of his long time friend Ryara Trakerspeare, one of the ships engineers, and the only Burmecian woman to ever work the engine room. A happy personality combined with a 'give it your all' attitude had brought her up so high on the rather limited social latter.

"Move it, rat face!" someone from behind shouted, and pushed past them with a trolley of tools and fire retardants. He looked up to see the wing of one of the other fighters had caught fire; it wasn't a big deal, and the only thing actually flammable was the paint. All the fighters were nuclear powered, allowing for the more powerful, and yet more compact Ion engines.

"I was worried… two of the fighters were blown out of space right after leaving the bay. One more impacted on the ship which was destroyed soon after." Said Ryara

"I know, and I am fine. I've been in much worse. Remember the Teraguthi incident? We lost almost five times this many fighters. I am content with just keeping you and everyone else on the ship safe. This ship isn't a priority for the Guerians."

"We're the biggest target left, word just came in during the battle, the Ipson was destroyed earlier today, and the Omergon was destroyed yesterday. The Revelation is the last battleship in the empire." She said weakly.

The news hit him like a herd of Chocobos. The loss of one battleship was hurtful enough, 5,000 lives lost in one fight, but two was unthinkable… 10,000 military officers, civilians, and workers lost. Two fifths of them were probably Burmecian, which hit home even harder. The only remaining relative of his was his sister, Sierra, who was stationed on the Red Guard, a small cruiser that was part of the Gaian defense force. His other sister, Weyra, had been presumed lost when her ship was captured by the Guerians, and his parents had died when a terrorist attack blew apart a section of the metropolis they had been living in. These were things only a few of his closest friends knew; Ryara was one of them.

Nearby, the wife of one of the dead pilots was hanging off a nearby mechanic, having just now been informed of her husband's demise.

Walking down the corridor, they saw that the entire crews' morale was in shambles; a couple had drowned their miseries of lost comrades and family with whiskey and beer, and staggered back to their quarters, half walking, half crawling. The whole war was spiraling out of control, major battleships, blown out of the sky, with the officer pool dwindling. Many of them now received a one-month training course on their chosen field.

Stepping into Tyr's quarters, Ryara assisted him in cooking some semblance of a meal, seeing as his cooking skills extended to boiling water and Meals Ready to Eat. They had planned to move into either one's quarters, the pay would increase a little, and they might even be able to afford to leave the ship, and move down to a colonial planet, maybe Concordia or Tiamat V. There was always a demand for crop dusters, and Ryara had expressed an interest in some of the colonization duties. Life was better out on the rim, there was a semblance of social equality, and the pay wasn't bad.

Sitting down after the brief meal of rice and beans, they sat together for what could have been either hours, or days, discussing every detail, from maintenance to recent news among the crew. It went late into the night, and finally, they fell asleep on the couch.

Two loud pings announced the morning. Groggily waking, Tyr saw that Ryara was still fast asleep on the couch; her shift didn't start for another two hours, so it was just as well to leave her asleep for now. Showering, and changing into a clean uniform, he grabbed the fighter starter chip from his nightstand, and a set of tools. He would be repairing his fighter today.

The daily grind again, an ever circling regime, repairing leaks, extracting bullets, scraping burnt paint… This was what he was doing, pouring acid on the burnt paint before scraping it off, and repainting it again. He never understood why they had to repaint their fighters; they would just get the paint chipped off again next time. It was a well proven statistic, that by the end of a fighter's useful life, the metal skin would have been replaced over ten times, and the paint changed almost fifteen times that.

It was still early, and yet he was almost done with the first wing. If he was lucky, he could get off at 14:00, and go sleep the rest of the day. A Qu waddled over with a clipboard and a check list, and passed it to Tyr… He signed off on a requisition order for ammunition for his fighter, and sat down, watching as the creature waddled away. Cleaning his tools, he began work on the cockpit, which was in constant need of repair, the wiring in all the fighters was substandard, and was constantly coming loose.

Climbing back out of the cockpit when he heard the trolley of ammunition, he directed the loading of the missiles and ammunition belts. Passing the Qu a swift salute, he shut and locked the cockpit before packing the tools and leaving. On his way to the cafeteria, he saw several human officers stagger past, drunk, something that was becoming increasingly common among the crew.

Sitting down at a table, he opened up one of the sandwiches he had gotten from the counter, and ate it quickly. He wanted to get back to his quarters, and was soon underway again. It was 16:00 now, two hours after he had wanted to get off, but it was better early then not….

Clang! The klaxons were going off…

"General Quarters, all pilots to your fighters." The announcements came, two red lights shone above each door, signaling a Class 2 red alert. Running full sprint down the hallway, he reached the fighter bay in what had to be a record. Climbing in, he felt the ship slide onto the rail, and prepare for launch. The magnetic beams swept once across the bow of the fighter as soon as the cockpit was sealed, and it catapulted out into space.

There were four ships, capital ships, none of the refitted freighters they had been fighting before, but captured Alexandrian vessels; they had come at the Revelation with all they had.

"Squad leader, form up, alert fighters have launched from target Tango-Tango-Delta-Four."

"Rodger control, red wing, Bohr formation, on my mark, fire Anti Capital Ship missiles, Blue wing, provide cover for Red wing."

Tyr brought the fighter's nose to bear on the first target, an enemy fighter who had become divided from its wing. Peppering it with rounds from his cannons. Diving below the burning wreck, he caught a few shots in the wing before he pulled it away. Heading back to the Red wing, he saw a delta formation of the enemy fighters, it was a good move against bombers, but left them open to a rear assault… swinging the craft around, he flashed past the farthest wingman, and pulled a sharp turn so that he was behind the leader. Next to him, two other Blue wing fighters were forming on his wing, and preparing to open fire…

The missiles flashed from under their wings, and struck individual targets, the leader was struck by two, and disappeared in a cloud of fire. Three others spiraled out of control, two others were hit by the crippled fighters, and were themselves critically injured. With only four enemy fighters left, they light their afterburners, the enemy was nearing the Red team's exposed bombers, already, shots were pinging off the hulls, soon they would be in missile range.

Passing under the first enemy missile cruiser, he heard missile lock-on warnings ping in his cockpit. Instinctively pulling up, he saw the other two fighters beside him go up in a fiery ball of death. The missile passed under him, but did not loop around. Another lock-on told him he was being targeted again. He wouldn't be so lucky again, the missile struck his left wing, and exploded, shearing off much of it. He was crippled, and at the mercy of the cruiser only 300 meters away.

He could see the Revelation pounding her assailants with MAC slugs, but had sustained some damage, and now, all her fighters had been crippled or destroyed. The enemies were still moving in on her when the micro singularity formed in front of the ship to carry it away to safety. Tyr was relieved for a moment, before he remembered his situation… He was trapped, at the mercy of at least 3 very powerful cruisers, and he had no engine, no weapons, and a beacon that was sending off bursts of neutrinos to allow him to be recovered.

There was no chance of being saved, the ships would destroy all the fighters they found. Flipping up the safety catch, he pushed the cockpit open button to allow the sweet quick freeze of the vacuum of space to take his life. Lowering a finger to it, he depressed the button…

Chapter 1 is in the works, read and review!

Thanks! Drake


	2. Chapter 1: The Daguerro Liberation Force

Author's Note: Chapter 1 of the story, don't worry, all is not lost, I just left you hanging in true Science Fiction style. Yeah, I decided to do something different for my return fic, it turned out better then I thought it would too. We're going to hear a lot more about the Guerians, don't worry…. I do have to give thanks to my editor Mark, who braves my every episode to bring you a mistake-free (Or close to it) fan fiction…and now… back to the story…

There was nothing, no hiss of the oxygen leaving his ship… no quick freeze of the absolute zero temperatures, no bright light at the end of the tunnel… well, there was a bright light, but that was from the damage indicator. Tyr looked down and saw it, just next to the glass; the metal was torn up and fragmented. Strange goo was frozen to the outside of the metal skin. It was hydraulic fluid, thrown up when his fighter had been hit, there was no pressure left, the cockpit had no ability to open… it was going to stay locked shut.

His radar was displaying the ripples of the laser used by the Guerian ship as a sort of rudimentary radar, bouncing off his fighter. Looking up, he saw the familiar shape of the Empire's cruisers; this one had the strange arrows all Guerian ships had painted on its bow.

He waited for their weapons to be trained on him, the brilliant red angel of death to rain down on his crippled craft and end it all. Instead, he saw the airlocks on the side of the ship opening. They wore space suits of differing colors, orange for the engineering crews, green for the security crew; they zipped over on their maneuvering packs, trailing a cable behind them. Tyr was lost, what were they doing? Salvaging the fighter? Taking a captive for interrogation? He submitted to whatever fate as the cables were attached and his fighter was drawn into the ship.

The airlock sealed after the last crewman stepped aboard. Air rushed into the chamber, and the men began taking off their helmets. Tyr saw Humans, Burmecians, Qu, and even a few Genomes. With the air temperature back to normal, the fluid that had sealed his cockpit shut melted, and the glass sprung open. He was too stunned to say or do anything, and didn't react when they cut off the harness that kept him in his seat.

He had gone temporarily deaf, and didn't hear what they were saying. His head hurt too much; he faintly remembered feeling pain during the battle, when he had to make a sharp dodge, but what he didn't know that the side of his head had been gashed open, and that he had a heavy concussion.

He was on a stretcher, moving quickly toward the infirmary. They had removed his helmet, which allowed the blood to move freely from the wound. He couldn't tell what was going on, there was a huge commotion, he was soon strapped down to a table, and doctors were applying the white foam that would stop the bleeding. There were others in there too, Guerian crew with horrific burns on their arms, faces, or legs.

It all became fuzzy; he remembered an odd taste of orange in his mouth, and a bright light being shone in his eyes. It was quiet all of a sudden; dark too… it was like the room had been thrown into darkness. Sitting up, he spat out more of the orange flavored substance; it was foam, radiation foam, used to soak up the harmful rays. He wasn't surprised; the fighter's reactor had probably been hit too.

Lying back again, he looked up at the ceiling, the operation tools sat suspended above him, to his right; he saw several bottles, containing everything from pills to syringes, serums and alcohol. He was wearing one of those white patient uniforms, and the bandages around his head were dry, meaning they were freshly changed.

He didn't know why he was there; he should be dead and they probably wanted to interrogate him, to glean some information leading to the location of the Revelation. Then his thoughts drifted to his ship and to Ryara…. He was probably listed as Killed in Action, just another statistic with the pilot losses for the month.

"Awake already?" someone said from behind him. He turned to see a human woman in a white lab coat "The captain was hoping to have a word with you, but not for at least another two hours."

"Where am I?" he asked, his head throbbing once more.

"In the infirmary of the Rebellion carrier, Wasp." She said, "We were very worried you wouldn't make it when we first admitted you."

"Am I being held prisoner?" he asked. The doctor looked away at these words, not wanting to look him in the eyes.

"I'm sorry lieutenant; there are three armed guards outside the door, when you are declared stable, they are to move you to a holding cell." She said, still not looking at him…

It was at that moment that the door on the other side of the room opened. A fat, bald man in a uniform walked in, his piercing blue eyes trained on the captured pilot.

"He is awake, doctor? Why were the guards not informed?" he asked sternly,

"I am sorry commander; he woke not a few minutes ago." She said, stuttering profusely.

"Fine, doctor." He said, walking past her, to look over Tyr, "You are lucky the captain wanted at least one captured pilot, else we would have left you in that pile of scrap. But you still have to deal with him… Guards!" He yelled the last word, and two burly human marines and a considerably slighter Burmecian walked in.

"Detention cell block D, water, no food." The commander said, before pulling out a flask and taking a swig of it.

The trip to the cell block was a quiet affair at first, but soon the three guards were talking amongst themselves, it seemed all military vessel crews liked to complain about the same things: Food, work, and wage. Or so he could gather. After about 10 minutes of being carried on the stretcher, the Burmecian guard spoke to him.

"Pilot, eh? I didn't know the Empire trusted our race with anything bigger than a laser rifle. Then again, why waste human lives?" he said, "What's it like to fly one of those death traps?"

"Like having sex in a speeder wreck..." Tyr said distantly, ignoring the laughs he had extracted from the guards.

"Here we go, detention cell block D…" One of the marines said, the area looked like any other corridor, it was by sheer luck he noticed the camera, nestled in the natural shadows, and the auto-turret that looked for all purposes like a flowering plant.

The door slid open, and they moved him in, placing him on the bed and rolling up the stretcher. It was a bare room; it had a bed which barely deserved the name, a set of drawers, on which a drab grey uniform sat, and a food preparation center, which seemed to be in a state of repair, the wires all disconnected, and tools laying about.

"Commander says no food, but I am sure we can make an exception to the rule, there should be something in the food locker. The captain will be by later, don't know why they don't just shoot you, we're always low on supplies…" he said, it sounded half jokingly, which put him on edge.

Tyr laid there for what felt like an age, his head was hurting again, but now his stomach was beginning to fight for dominance in today's list of troubles. Getting up, he still felt sore; he guessed he had a few bruised ribs too, probably from the restraints. The locker was basically empty; there was some rice, cheese, crackers, pickles, and salami.

Grabbing some of the crackers, cheese, and meat, he ate a bit before repacking the rest. He had no idea what time it was, the clock on the table had long since been disconnected from its power source. His headache was lessened, and his energy returning. He changed into the uniform that had been sitting on the dresser, and sat back on the bed again. It wasn't long before the door opened again, and the Burmecian guard who had escorted him in entered. Only now he wasn't in the drab red uniform of the guards, but the pressed white uniform only an officer would wear.

"Hello Pilot. It's good to see you up and about." He said, sitting down on the chair near the desk. "Captain Raytoth Trakerspeare, you might have met my sister on the Revelation, Ryara?"

Tyr was stunned, but he wasn't going to say anything. He didn't know how the captain would react if he were to tell him that he had been having a relationship with his sister…

"Now, I took you alive because you might have some useful information. I need to know where the Revelation jumped to. What are her retreat coordinates?"

"I don't know…" Tyr mumbled. He had resolved not to tell, for the sake of Ryara at least. If his sacrifice would keep her safe, then so be it.

"Don't lie…" the other Burmecian growled,

"I don't know." He said adamantly,

"Come with me," The white-garbed Burmecian said, standing up, and motioning toward the door. Tyr walked through it after the Captain. "Do you know why I chose to escort you in disguise?"

"No." Tyr said,

"I wanted to see what kind of person you were, what kind of officer you were… It's a gift, now; this is one of a few computer relays. I have something to show you."

"What did you see?"

"What?"

"What kind of person am I?" Tyr asked, testing…

"An honorable man and dutiful officer. It's the way you carry yourself, even while injured. Not to mention the way you keep the secret of where your ship currently lies. So I think its time you saw this," he said, turning on the computer monitor, and pulling up one of the files - a movie - which started playing immediately.

"What is it?" Tyr asked. The grainy footage was blurry, as the cameraman was running through the dark corridors.

"Footage, one of the marine teams had a camera man when they were raiding an Alexandrian supply frigate. Just watch…"

The cameras lens began to focus, Tyr could see other marines crowded around a bulkhead checking weapons and listening to the shouting that was going on in behind the steel door.

"Ready?" One of the commanders yelled, "Go! Move! Move!" They swung open the door; the camera followed a second later. On it, he could see the marines storming one of the engine rooms, inside, the foul conditions; blazing fires from poorly maintained safety systems, corpses of deceased crew piled at the edges of the room, food which barely deserved the name… The marines pushed through the throng of Qu, who had stopped working to watch the newcomers.

"The engine room often serves as a morgue in most ships. Ironically, the most amount of crew are also killed there. I don't know about on the Revelation, but before we took the Wasp, this is what it looked like." The Captain commentated.

The camera shifted angles -Alexandrian crew had started to fight back, shots rang all around the camera anf at one point, blood peppered the lens, but the operator wiped it clean, leaving only a slight streak to show that it had been there. The view shifted again, it looked as though the marines were making headway.

"Do you know why the Empire gave our race so much freedom?" The captain asked, rhetorically. "Because we are a threat to them. Be too disrespectful, and they have a rebellion on their hands that pervades every ship they own. Be too lenient, and we could have realized the suffering they were causing to the Qu, or Condians. We got off lucky; they didn't. That is why we mean to strike at the very heart of the Empire, capture Gaia, and end this war."

"This doesn't change anything there is no reason to continue to pursue the ship it is the last Carrier in the fleet and will be doing repairs it will be out of the battle; if your final target is Gaia, then take your fleet there... I have no love for the empire, but I do for my friends on the Revelation."

"It isn't that easy, and you know it. Gaia is defended by more then just ships, there is a near impenetrable shield around it, and they lower or raise it only for ships with the proper clearance. Then we have the six orbital MAC cannons; only five of them could fire upon us at one time, but our few capital ships would be out in less then fifteen minutes."

"Where does the Revelation come in?"

"We need another ship, and her complement of fighters, and we need to do it before they report activity in this sector."

"You're going to use the Revelation to take down the shield wall."

"Correct, they won't know she has been taken. When we jump to her coordinates, we will target her communication array and blow it away before she can send out a distress signal. Then, we're going to detonate a nuclear device about 3 kilometers away, creating an Electro-Magnetic Pulse that will disable the fighters - only a slight risk of radiation, and the hulls of capital ships will keep out the hard stuff."

"What happens to me, if I were to give you the coordinates… and what happens to the crew on the Revelation?" Tyr asked. The captain had given him a chance to be back with Ryara, and he would take it, no matter the cost.

"The crew of the Revelation is to be taken aboard, and held in the brig. And you fly with us for however long as you wish, we are in desperate need of fighter pilots, maybe you could help us train a few." The captain said, holding out his hand,

"On one condition." Tyr said firmly. He wouldn't let any deal go down, unless he got something.

"What's that?"

"You let one person I choose out of the brig, no questions asked, then we can leave. I will train you your pilots, you let me off the hook when you capture the Revelation." Tyr said, holding out his hand.

"Deal. No questions asked, and you both are free to go. You have my word. Welcome to the Daguerro Liberation Forces…"

They shook hands, bound by the deal. You could break a promise, but never a deal, especially when your honor was bound up in it. The contract was entered in the official ship's log, and Tyr was signed up on the roster as a Formation Leader, and assigned to teach a group of cadets how to fly the Aurora Attack Craft… it was going to be a long month and a half…

Chapter 2 in the works, be prepared, don't panic!


	3. Chapter 2: Teeth of the Enemy

Authors Note: This is a rather long chapter, almost double what I normally write, which leaves me at about 10,000 words so far… I thank those who are reviewing, and ask that they continue to do so… The next chapter will be of a normal length, I just thought I would give you something to read while I work on it…

His past week aboard the Wasp had been, for lack of a better word, interesting. The Daguerro Liberation Forces had a total of nine Carriers, twelve Battleships, and dozens of assorted frigates, cruisers, and other support vessels. Most were in pretty bad condition, and the carriers were near useless in a battle as anything more then a place to land damaged frigates or corvettes, which could fit inside the massive landing bay.

The reason for this was the absolute lack of trained pilots. The DLF had never implemented a standardized training process; most crew learned their positions during combat, or had previous experience on Alexandrian vessels. Tyr was unique, in that he was the only person qualified to fly the large Aurora Attack Fighters, which the Wasp has stored in her unused launch rails.

The Aurora was one of the advanced fighters that the Alexandrian Navy had put onboard the Wasp for trials. Fast, aggressive, and armed to the teeth, they had been a lucky find for the DLF. However, they used more advanced controls then the dials and switches onboard the Shrike Fighters, which basically all other carriers carried. The Revelation's primary fighter had been the Shrike fighter.

There were also scores of hand built corvettes, ranging in quality and design… They sat unused in the rear hangar deck, whose launch rails had been destroyed in the Daguerran attack that had captured the ship, and had never been repaired.

Tyr sat in his quarters, they weren't much better then the holding quarters he had received when he first came onboard, but at least there was better food.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts; he had been planning how he would train the new pilots, twenty green ensigns and non-enlisted crewman who had passed a written test and extensive physical examination to allow them to pilot the Aurora.

"Come in!" Tyr yelled at the door, and filed away the crew lists and technical printouts he had on his desk. He was surprised to see someone he didn't know, due to the fact that most of the crew avoided him like the plague. Apparently it took a while to fit in, or so the captain said. The newcomer was human and looked very young, probably in his early twenties. He had cropped red hair and a uniform that looked like it had been used to clean up an oil spill.

"Lieutenant William Sebois, Chief Flight Deck Officer." He stuttered, looking at his shoes, which were also extremely dirty. Tyr got the impression that this was normal behavior for the skinny youth.

"Good morning lieutenant, how can I help?" Tyr said, slightly worried, he had never met an officer who was this nervous; especially one that maintained performance machines like the Shrike and Aurora fighters.

"I…. I was hoping to… uh…. Find out when you needed the A…Auroras on the d…deck." He struggled, still looking at his shoes.

"1300 hours, I need 21 on deck for inspection and assignments." Tyr said,

"Thank you sir… the c…crew want to know… if… you're going to t…talk to the c…captain about reopening th…the second landing bay…" The nervous human asked, working his way around the words.

"We won't be needing it for a while, at least a month, there's no point in extending more energy to it then needed, besides, the only thing in there right now is the dead pool, a bunch of the personal craft, I've been in there twice now."

"Sir, we were hoping to sal… salvage parts from them, a lot of the fighters are in n… need of replacement parts. The only thing still in good cond… condition besides the dead pool, are the Aurora, and we obv… obviously can't go scavenging parts from them." The officer managed a nervous sort of chuckle,

"I will ask him Lieutenant. Is that all?"

"Yes sir… thank you sir." The quivering officer exclaimed, and left the room…

"They want to use the rear deck as a source for parts, a lot of the personal craft of the Alexandrian officers are still there, and have enough replacement parts to repair the Shrikes, and still have plenty left over." Tyr said to the Captain, who was reading over the list of pilots qualified for the shrikes, and circling names as he went.

"A sound idea, but it would be less effort to just repair the rails and use them as fodder." The captain said, circling two more names in red ink.

"They would only absorb a few shots, we have 52 Shrike fighters, and only two dozen are operational. The parts we get from the second bay could get all of them operational again. Besides, we will need the second bay in about a month anyway."

"Why?" The captain asked, looking up from his paper.

"Sir, in order for the Aurora to be effective, we need to be able to launch them faster. The Hangar we use now was only meant to be the auxiliary hangar, it only has seven rails, that means it would take over 5 minutes to get all of the Aurora into space. Not including how long it takes to get all the Shrike flying. The main hangar has thirty rails, if we're going to win against the Alexandrian navy; we need to be able to at least match them in firepower. With both hangars spitting out fighters, we could get all 73 fighters out in less then 2 minutes."

"How long do you think it would take to get the hangar into shape?"

"Two weeks tops. If the engineering staff helped with it, it could be done in one." Tyr said, going over the hangar in his head.

"Alright, I will send twenty of the crew I selected on this list down to the hangar bay before 1300 hours. Anything else?"

"No sir."

"Dismissed." He said. Tyr stepped out of the ready room, and walking right into the Commander.

"Watch it!" the man barked, his eyes were bloodshot, and he smelt of alcohol, he shoved Tyr out of the way before storming into the ready room. Tyr had never actually seen the Commander on duty, heck; he had seen the angry officer without the flask of whatever he was always drinking. Ignoring it, he recomposed himself, and walked out into the hallway.

The trip to the hangar deck was a quiet one, which passed relatively quickly. There weren't many who came this way during the lunch shifts, he did see a few repair crews fixing some conduits or refitting some panels, which had fallen off the wall, exposing the innards of the ship, the wires and pipes.

It was 12:19 when he reached the hangar deck. The place was noisy, every which way there was some sort of activity, be it hoisting some damaged fighter, or repairing the deck, which had several long tears in the metal, where a larger ship seemed to have come down too hard.

In the middle of all the commotion, sat the 21 shiny Aurora Attack Fighters, and around them, sat three groups of pilot hopefuls. One group, a set of Humans, were chatting animatedly to one another, the second group, one he had almost mistaken for another group of humans were the Genome, who were going over lists of information on the fighter, then there was the group of Burmecians, who were inspecting their fighters.

He hadn't even met them all, and he could see what the captain had done, he had balanced the cadets to please the entire ship at once. While it was a sound strategy when it came to internal ship politics, it would create problems of his own when it came to teaching.

There were seven of each major race, the number being equal; they felt no need to collect with any others. His plan had been to split them up into three equal squads, but now he didn't feel it would work.

Genome were very intelligent, and could formulate several plans at once, and execute them to the letter, the problem was, they weren't aggressive, relying on complicated tactics and formations to win, while using the least amount of ammunition. Efficiency was what they strove for, and with their by the book style they never were put up for court marshal, but most of the time, that was what got them killed, their general inflexibility.

Humans on the other hand, were less deliberating, and more aggressive, swooping around like birds of prey, picking off enemies at phenomenal speeds, but these reckless tactics gave them the highest mortality rate. They were good at what they did though, putting up walls of lead that would tear through most enemy formations, battles were quick and decisive; it was either win or loose.

Then there was his own race, they had always been known for their tactics of attrition, waiting calmly for an opportunity to present itself. Radar being what it was, a small fighter could power down, and be completely invisible. To a Burmecian pilot, everything was grey; there was always a downside to a win, and an upside to a loss. They where calm, and yet aggressive, but this made for long, drawn out battles, some taking days to fizzle out. Win or loose, they had the lowest mortality rate, but also didn't have the best track record when it came to actually delivering the battle.

Stepping up, the cadets took all of a second to drop what they were doing, and organize into a rough inspection line. Most of them had worn too little, the hangar deck was very cold, sitting at 12 Degrees Celsius, it was hard to heat such an expanse of air, especially when a lot of the heat was lost through the less then adequately insulated hangar deck door.

"Good Afternoon Cadets." He said, most saluted, a few of the humans forgot to, he wasn't surprised to see that a few were less then thrilled that they were going to be taught by a Burmecian. "My name is Lieutenant Redblade, I served on the Alexandrian carrier Revelation as a Shrike pilot. Now I am here to train you to pilot the Aurora craft, if anyone has any problem with this, I am sure I can arrange for your replacement." He said sternly. It was out of character for him, but he was doing his best to imitate his own instructor, who had been highly successful, in his class, almost everyone made full pilot rank, Tyr was hoping for even half that. "Questions?"

"What makes you qualified to pilot an Aurora if you're only experience was with a Shrike?" one of the Genome asked,

"The Aurora was meant as a replacement for the Shrike, the controls are similar, you just have to get used to the handling. I am also the only pilot qualified to teach cadets." This last bit of information was a lie, of sorts… True, he wasn't qualified to teach cadets with a degree, but he wasn't going to let on that most of the shrike pilots on the Wasp didn't know what half of the controls did in their cockpits, or that it was pure luck so many had survived to date.

"Any further questions?" He asked, before turning around to grab a black plastic case from the table behind him. "These are basic flight manuals, technical readouts, and course syllabus, which will detail the class over the next four weeks." He said, stepping aside to allow the cadets to grab a manual.

"Today we're going over the basic flight and squadron assignments." He said, now, will everyone please report to an Aurora, and don't touch anything until I tell you." He said, seriously.

He climbed into another Aurora that had been sitting off to the side, his ship. It had dark red stripes painted onto it, and his name under the cockpit. It was surprisingly quiet inside the cabin, outside he could see the commotion, but he couldn't hear it. Picking up the headset, he slipped it into his ear with only a bit of trouble. It definitely hadn't been made for Burmecian ears, and he would have to have some new ones made later.

"Alright, now if everyone will pay attention to the green display at the top left of the control panel." He instructed, "This is your fission reactor heads up display, or HUD for short. It will tell you status, temperature, power, and coolant. If there are any power problems, this will tell you. You control the settings with the touchpad screen."

"Sir?" a female voice asked,

"Yes cadet…?"

"Cadet Ravelton sir, I was wondering why we aren't in a classroom. Most pilots learn the basics in an actual classroom environment."

"We are learning basic controls and readout so that when we do move into the classroom, you know what I am talking about and can associate controls with gauges. The flight manual doesn't show the entire cockpit as a whole, it splits it up into several small pictures. You weren't meant to learn from the manual, the Alexandrian navy expected to have trained pilots out here." He explained, "Now, next to that display is a blue HUD, this is the ammunition and damage indicators, sensors in the fighters hull can pick up bullet holes or other damage, and will indicate them on the screen. It also creates a log, so when its time to repair them, you know what to do without wasting time for an inspection. Since this is a display only device, there are no controls for it."

He looked across the deck at the fighters; it looked like a few had fallen asleep in their cockpits. His suspicions were confirmed when one of them slumped over, and began snoring into the microphone. Tyr continued, he could remember another certain Burmecian pilot who had slept through his own classes. He would get them to pay attention during practical classes…

The class ended relatively quickly, two hours of him explaining the various displays, controls, and explaining their functions. He dismissed the class, and climbed out of the cockpit. Outside waiting for him were a few cadets, two Humans, two Genome and three Burmecian.

"Yes?"

"Sir, you didn't pass out the assignments." One of the Genomes asked,

"Next class." He said,

"Sir, the Syllabus states that we have class on Sundays…" A human asked,

"You have Saturdays off, if you must, you can go to church then. Listen, if need be I can replace you, and you can do something else, I am sure the deck crew could always use another hand." He was getting irritable now; the schedule he had made was already stretched, "Anything else?"

"No Sir." They said, and walked towards the hangar entrance to go eat lunch.

The rest of the day was uneventful; he ate lunch with a group of the deck crew, who had invited him over to their table. In theory as CAG, he was supposed to eat in the officer's mess, but that was on the other end of the ship. The normal mess hall was near enough to the hangar, and his quarters for it to be better to just eat there.

Then he went to his quarters to sleep, for some reason, he was especially tired, closing his eyes, he let his thoughts wander, and dream overtake him…

Bang. Slam… The ship felt like it had been smashed into. Klaxons were screaming madly, and crew rushed this way and that. Tyr ran towards the Central Intelligence Center. He would hopefully get answers from there. Inside, officers rushed about, passing information to one another and yelling indecipherable lines of acronyms.

"What's going on?" Tyr yelled over the commotion, pulling aside one of the CIC officers.

"A battleship, a big one too, we think it has three MAC Cannons. Just jumped here and began putting holes in us!" the officer said.

"How? The Alexandrian's don't have any more capital ships!" he yelled back as the klaxons seemed to grow louder.

"No idea, we were getting ready to jump to the next quadrant when they hit. They tore up the frigates and cruisers, and they've been after us since. We already had two direct hits, and one glancing blow to the port side. The captain's ordered a full retreat."

"Have we fired back?"

"Yeah, two MAC slugs hit their dorsal wing, and another hit them dead on, they're still firing. Fighters are going to form up and attempt to buy us time by taking it on."

"Thanks!" Tyr yelled, and ran towards the hangar, he reached it almost a minute after… it had to be a new ship's record, assuming there was a ship after he got back.

Climbing into his Aurora, he felt it slide onto the rail, the familiar sensation of being sat on top of a rather large cliff and told to jump off. Arming weapons and switching on the reactor, he felt the familiar vibration as the catapult system prepared to sling him off into space.

"Three…" A voice in his helmet said, he released the docking clamps…

"Two… One… Launch." The fighter lurched forward, zooming ahead at near the speed of sound. He erupted into space, along with six other Shrikes.

"Anyone have a plan?" Came a voice over the radio,

"Anyone ever seen anything like this?" Another voice said,

"Negative, but it's putting slug after slug into the Wasp, Shrikes won't be much use against their armor… but at least we have a chance to see what those Aurora's can do. Up to the challenge CAG?"

"Affirmative, I have two Exocets, but nothing else that might penetrate the armor." Tyr said over the radio,

"Damn, we have to do something to hold off this thing. Its damn armor is too thick to hit with anything less then a MAC slug." Tyr thought about this, the MAC slugs were having little effect because most of their force was used up when it hit the ablative armor. It impacted into the main hull relatively softly. It being a kinetic weapon, there was no explosion…

"Here's the plan…" Tyr said, formulating a strategy, "Two Shrikes fly on my wing, the rest go and distract any anti-fighter support they may have… When we reach the hole in the armor near the center, the Shrikes fire everything they have at it, heat it up a little, then I will fire both my Exocets, they will penetrate through the deck, and explode three seconds later. Plenty of time to get deep enough to cause a bit of damage."

"Sounds good, if anything, it might make them pull back to a safer distance to keep from the fighter support while the Wasp warms up her singularity drives."

"Good, S26 and S12, fly with me, the rest of you, go and distract any anti fighter turrets."

"Affirmative!"

Diving away from the rest, the two shrikes split off as well, forming up on his wing. He could see the other Shrikes dodging the slow turrets, there weren't that many either, the ship's builders had never seen fighters as being a problem, what with the armor being so thick.

"Just a few more kilometers." Tyr said,

"Rodger, weapons armed."

The seconds ticked by slowly, it was only a ten second wait, but at one point, the mission clock seemed to hold still… two… one… for a second, time seemed to stop…

"Fire!" The Shrikes wings alight as missile after missile flashed away from them, homing into the unarmored belly of the beast. The Aurora unloaded her missiles too, before launching the two Exocet Truncheon torpedoes. They moved faster then anything he had ever seen, two fireflies; traveling at nearly Mach 10. He saw them hit the red-hot hull plating and disappear into it. They were traveling in the unprotected decks now… swinging his fighter around; he turned around in time to see the explosion rip through the hole like a volcanic eruption.

"We got them!" Tyr yelled into his microphone, watching as the ship's deck lights flickered and died. They had definitely hit something, now the big steel beast was dead in space.

"Tyr to Wasp, we got them! They are without power."

"Lucky shot Lieutenant, return to the-…" the transmission was cut off, looking around, he saw two great flashes of light off the port bow of the Wasp, nuclear missiles or mines… the wave of energy collided with the ship, causing it to list to starboard. The wave dissipated, but the damage was done.

Flying towards the damaged section, he could hear the engineering crews radios now, the hull was fragmented, and many sections had explosively decompressed.

"What do you see Lieutenant?"

"A lot of damage, if this were a chocobo, I'd shoot it."

"That's what the chief is saying, they were small nukes, but this ship just wasn't made for close range combat. Our hull was too thin to take that."

"Sir, how long are repairs going to take?"

"About a month. Which puts us on an even tighter schedule. We have a few repair frigates on the way, but it will be at least a day before they get here."

The moment Tyr and the other Shrikes landed, they were swarmed with deck crew, all shouting, cheering, clapping, or drinking. Jumping out, he was swarmed with slaps on the back and offers of several different drinks.

He could see several of his cadets interspersed with the crew too. Wading through the crowd, he pushed his way into the hallway, which was empty… The door opened behind him, and a bunch of his cadets filed in after him.

"Hey Tyr! The marine transport is on its way back from that beast you took out!" one of the cadets yelled to him, he turned,

"What'd they get?"

"A bunch of prisoners and some pretty high end weaponry. Nukes, even a few explosive MAC slugs."

"Anything of real value?"

"Don't know, the Marines don't actually salvage the place, they just go over and make sure its clear for our salvage teams to move in." The door opened behind them, and armed marines in thick combat suits stepped through, followed by a line of prisoners in chains.

"What's the captain going to do with the ship?"

"Probably take the armor to patch up the Wasp, take anything else of value, computers, ammunition, weapons, and blow it up."

"Lieutenant!" came a call from down the hall, Tyr turned to see a crewman running down the hall. "Sir, the captain says to catch the salvage ship over, they found something." He said,

"What is it?"

"No idea, he was hoping you might know."

Whoever was piloting the ship must have had the reflexes of a small child, it seemed like the maneuvering thrusters were constantly in use, and the sound of the landing could have been heard clear to the bow of the ship. The salvage crew jumped out first, instantly scouring the deck for anything useful. Tyr followed the same crewman down the corridors. Turning again, he saw the starry expanse of space… Standing right inside the gaping hole in the ship's hull was the Captain.

"Incredible isn't it? At least we know why we couldn't depressurize their decks now…" he said, poking a finger at the field that kept the oxygen in the room, it shimmered and flexed.

It was an emergency field, something only recently thought up. Normally, airlocks dealt with decompression and sliding metal doors that doubled as security doors. The problem with this was it was very expensive, and never guaranteed to work. Only a year ago, a scientist by the name of Terrionold suggested the use of energy fields to contain escaping oxygen, his theory was incredibly complicated, involving the use of several generators arranged in a rough circle, this seemed much more advanced…

"It's a Terra-Field…" Tyr said, remembering the official name, "Alexandrian Fleet Command was fairly liberal with the information about it, considered it a moral boost. I mean, imagine, you would slash the casualties per MAC shot. Better chance of living through a battle."

"We only ever heard rumors of emergency fields, we dismissed them as propaganda… Impossible without years of research, and money the Empire just doesn't have."

"Well sir, I would say they managed to make one, and it is just as effective as they said it would be." Tyr said,

"Five." The captain said darkly,

"What?"

"They made five, and this was the smallest, there are four other ships like this one, armored behemoths they have been building in secret for years now. This was the smallest."

"Sir, this ship had two MAC cannons, and could aim them independently, how many does the biggest ship have?"

"Six MAC Cannons, the biggest is a two kilometer monster, one cannon for each side, and it has armor almost three meters thick." The captain said gloomily,

"But how?"

"We don't know, we only just retrieved this from the computer database, the other ships are nearing completion now, its only a matter of time before they launch, and when they do, we stand a real chance of loosing this war…"

"What are we to do?"

"We continue with the plan, if we can take Gaia, and destroy the government, we will have a chance of stopping this, if we fail, well, I don't have to tell you what the empire does to traitors and rebels."

The officer's cafeteria was quiet, far too quiet, the entire crew was grim faced, news of the four other ships had spread through the ship like fire in a dry forest. They were being called the 'Steel Fangs of the Empire'. It was a good name for them too, that's what they were, bite to back up the empire's bark.

He sat in the corner, going over the specifications of the field generators, the ship had them placed all over, all linked to a very complicated computer. It was only lucky they also worked off a secondary generator, or the entire ship might have been depressurized before they could have gotten aboard.

Tyr knew the captured prisoners were undergoing an interrogation, he wondered how the captain was going about doing this… he pushed the thoughts out of his mind, going back to the plans. He was no scientist or engineer, but he could certainly see how the generators might be of value… they could set up some around the hanger doors and guide rails, which would allow them to keep them open while the deck crew went about their duties, allowing faster launches and landings.

This gave them a huge advantage; the Steel Fangs didn't seem to think fighters a threat. They were not armed with a lot of anti-fighter equipment, but did carry a small squadron of their own fighters in a port launch bay; they were Aurora Fighters too. Which meant that he would have to hurry up the cadets training, lest they come under attack again, for if they did, Shrike fighters would be no match for the much more advanced Auroras.

Climbing into bed later that night, his thoughts once again strayed to the enemy ships… the smallest of them had almost destroyed the Wasp, and its armor had only been a few feet thick, and now they find that explosive decompression would not take out most of the crew. This, combined with the fact that the largest of the teeth had armor almost three meters thick would force them to rethink their tactics… and then there was still the Revelation, who would be ready for combat again in just a month's time… He fell asleep with these thoughts, four great invincible ships peppering the Wasp full of holes… what a name for a ship… he though… Invincible… ha-ha… Invincible…


	4. Chapter 3: Red, Green, And Blue

Note: I'm still looking for some good reviews, if you are keeping an eye on this let me know of your thoughts!

Chapter 3: Red, Green, and Blue

The classes met in a classroom for day two of their training. They were assembled at their desks when Tyr walked in, wearing clean uniforms for a change. He immediately proceeded to draw seven dots on the board, in a delta formation.

"Good Morning, everyone sit…. Lets start with the basics…. The Delta formation is used for bombing missions; bombers fly level with each other, and drop their ordinance without hitting each other." He stopped; several cadets were taking notes, "It allows for the carpet bombing of targets, while maintaining the smallest possible radar signature. It can help mask your numbers."

He continued like this for a while, going over everything from the Diamond to the Claw formations, explaining the intricacies of keeping a tight formation, and the proper way to split from the formation. At least no one fell asleep this time. He had spent the entire morning working on this lesson, which he had written up as a list of things to talk about, he was almost finished, only one last item…

"We're going to be dividing into three teams." He started; the cadets all sat up straight, "Red Flight, Green Flight, and Blue Flight. There are seven cadets per team, and I am going to let you pick teams, I expect three rosters by the end of the third shift. I will be in the officer's mess waiting, if I don't get any rosters by then, I will be making them up myself." He finished,

"Sir, are the flights going to compete against each other?" Cadet Ravelton asked,

"Indeed, on and off the battlefield. When you are flying practice, your team will be awarded points based on skill, formation, and 'kills'. In actual combat, you get a kill chart. Winning Flight gets bragging rights." He said. Competition was a good way to keep morale high… as long as it was controlled…

"Any other questions?" he asked,

"When are we getting into the cockpit?" One of the Genome asked,

"We've already been in it…" he joked, drawing a few stifled chuckles, "Practical flight takes place next lesson, easy stuff, pitch, yaw, thruster control, etc."

"Any chance for competition in it?" From the same cadet, Tyr thought about this for a moment…

"Team with the best results eats in the officer's mess that evening." He said, drawing a few excited glances, the food in the OM was undeniably superior to that of the ship's mess. "Dismissed." He said, and the class began to file out, it was going to be interesting when he saw the rosters later this evening.

Taking a jog around the flight deck was not a normal thing for him to do. Tyr normally stuck to the gym, but he couldn't concentrate with the noise of a hundred weights slamming back into place, or two hundred feet on a treadmill, and while it wasn't exactly quiet on the deck, it wasn't nearly as bad, and most of the deck crew were on break, the few he could see were either working on missile storage racks, or on ships...

Collecting his thoughts again, he thought long about the 'nuggets' as the captain called the new recruits. He didn't know any of them well enough to get an idea of what the teams would be like, in his academy days, he had been on an entirely Burmecian squad, they had perfected the tactic now known as 'Starfire' in most handbooks, and it did give them the credit, 'Red Squad #177' as they had been known.

Starfire was a tactic that was more for striking fear into the enemy then anything; it was relatively useless in most situations unless the fighter squad were to be totally surrounded on all sides. The fighters would go into a sphere formation, each facing a outwards at a different direction, then, they would fire two missiles, and as much tracer ammo they could, the light from this had been known to temporarily blind pilots who were not wearing their visors.

He continued to reminisce about this when he heard someone jogging just behind him, looking back, he saw two humans, one he recognized as Cadet Ravelton, and another he thought to be Lieutenant Thrye, one of the shrike pilots. He stopped, allowing them to catch up. They both caught up, stopping to catch their breath.

"Yes Cadet, Lieutenant?" he asked,

"I have the roster sir." She said, breathing heavily, "I had the Lieutenant help me with it."

"Let me see it…" Tyr said, taking the paper from her outstretched hand,

'Red Squadron; Cadets Kyra Ravelton, Sharon Dowherty, Linzani Rebile, Derick Thype, Dyrion Adara, Geit Menselforth, Lyreah Fletcher'

Three Humans, three Burmecians and one Genome. He thought, and they weren't bad students as far as he could see.

"Alright, thank you Cadet, make sure you organize your squad, leader, and both left and right wings." He said, folding the list and putting it into his pocket.

"Thank you sir." She said, walking off, thinking for a moment as she left, his thoughts were disturbed by a loud noise to his left. Twisting around, he saw the ammunition rack coming apart under the weight of the missiles; they began clattering to the ground one by one. He cursed, as he flung himself behind one of the Shrike fighter chassis on the ground, which was none too late, as one of the projectiles ignited, exploding near where he had been standing…

"You're just lucky that was a fighter to fighter missile, if it had been a capital ship missile, we would be missing this half of the bay." The master at arms said, a tall silver haired Burmecian woman with a large notch in her left ear. "The junior deck hands overstocked the case, and it collapsed under the stress, it was just lucky only one went off, and it didn't set off the rest." The hole in the deck plates was almost a meter deep, and 4 meters in diameter. Black scorch marks radiated from the center.

"Thank you Specialist. Any idea when the deck will be repaired? I'm using it for class tomorrow." He said,

"We can fill it in with PlastiCrete, and then put a steel cap over it. Best the deck chief can do on short notice."

"Ask him for me." He said before a couple of the cadets found their way over to him,

"Sir, we heard you were in sick bay." He said, sounding shaky, "Half the class was down there looking for you."

"Tell them I am fine, and that I still expect those rosters by tonight." He said, pulling out the roster he had gotten from Cadet Ravelton. "I've already gotten one, so that leaves only two-thirds of you, better get cracking." He said, leaving the cadet to deliver the message, he didn't feel like walking down to the sickbay. It was mid afternoon, and he was getting hungry.

Walking to the officer's mess could be a chore some days, it depended on what kinds of activity was going on in the hallway, sometimes you had to use all the unused corridors, and unlit areas where most power had been cut off from, relatively unknown areas of the ship, there had never been enough crew to fully stock the carrier, so they quarantined some areas from everything but basic life support.

Well, Tyr was now in one of these corridors, a dark, dry place, devoid of all noise except for the rhythmic thump of the engines. Quietly walking towards the hatch door, he reflected on things, most of these things we're the crewmembers who had blocked his way to the mess, he could have squeezed around a downed cargo trolley, but the engineering crew was to preoccupied with trying to save it, keeping him away for fear that he might damage something.

Reaching the hatch, the light overhead an amber yellow, he turned the wheel three times to the right, and pushed the heavy door open. Walking out, he was only a few feet away from the mess when someone yelled his name, turning, he saw the Master at Arms running up towards him…

"I've been… looking for you…" she huffed, "The explosion… wasn't an accident…"

"What?" he asked, the master at arms catching her breath,

"We thought it might be metal fatigue from over stacking them, but when I looked into it, I saw that it should easily have been able to have withstood that much weight, so I looked at the actual structure of the shelf, and the straps that held them in place." She said, lifting up a cut piece of the heavy-duty straps that held the missiles into place,

"It's been cut…" Tyr said,

"And the shelf had several of the supports removed, this was meant to happen, someone tried to get that missile to fall on you." She said, "The only question is why…"

"Simple, I am the only one with the ability to train the new cadets, without me, no one would know how to fly the Auroras, which keeps the fights in Alexandrian favor." He deduced,

"You think we have a spy aboard?" She asked,

"Probably a few of them." He said,

"I will inform the captain of your suspicions, and he will tell me how to proceed… in the meantime, stay to the general corridors for me, no more jaunts through the quarantine zones. I will try and get an armed detail to escort you." She said, running off. Now, not only was he fighting a war, but he had to look over his shoulder every ten seconds, surrounded by bodyguards…

Sitting in the mess hall, he ate as he looked over the class roster, a full list of the cadets, which he was crossing off as he got the rosters, it was getting late, and he was about to start singling out the two teams when one of the cadets walked into the mess…

"Cadet Engil sir, I have our roster…" she said, passing over the list… He looked it over,

'Blue Squadron; Cadets Damion Chase, Chris Hart, Abagain Engil, Gideon Thye, Sam Hakisawa, Doug Ghala, Frederick Sefiter'

Four Humans, and three Genome, he could see a few of the hot shots and braggarts had made the list. The general stupid and or arrogant people that made up the majority of the trouble makers… why wasn't he surprised…

"Alright Cadet, be ready first thing in the morning." He said, placing the roster next to the class list, he was about to go back to his soup when another cadet ran in, disorganized and red in the face, which, for a Genome meant he had been running for some time now.

"Am I late?" he asked,

"No Cadet, you made it." Tyr said, disapproving of the cadet's appearance, taking the roster from his hand. The names on the list didn't surprise him; neither did the balance of four Burmecian and three Genome, being as they had been the only ones left,

'Green Squadron; Cadets Reag Sevsper, Weyr Forretus, Erin Saerg, Terra Silvia, Sierra Highland, Ceawen Eihs, Aeri Campgne'

"Report to the hanger deck in the morning Cadet." He said, pulling all three rosters together inside of a black folder he used to organize the information… He had one last thing to do before he retired to bed, getting up, he walked out the door, only to find himself surrounded on either side by two burly marines,

"We were sent to provide protection by the Master at Arms." The taller one said,

"Unnecessary, I am just going to the Pilot's Racks, near the flight deck." He said, not waiting for an answer. Walking swiftly down the flight deck corridors, he reached the bunks where the pilots were to sleep; on the wall there was a cork announcement board, papers left over from the Alexandrian days still tacked up on the walls. Tearing these down, he posted the three rosters, and a chart, depicting each team, the pilots on that team, and an empty box for the kill charts.

Turning after a brief look at them, he walked towards his own quarters, tomorrow was the first flight, he had better get some sleep… because if he knew that half the cadets wouldn't have gotten much, staying up half the night studying the manuals…


	5. Chapter 4: Desolate Homestead

Authors Note:

This is a rather short chapter, only about 4 pages, because I'm writing the actual action into its own separate chapter… My group of Beta-Readers are very excited, they say that it feels like it's working up to something big, which is the effect I'm going for… So I guess so far, this story is a success. Read and Review, and send me E-mails or AIM (UthRptr2) messages. I'm always interested in co-writing something. Thanks!  
Drake

Chapter 4: Desolate Homestead

"What's everyone so excited for?" Tyr asked as he walked onto the Hanger deck… Looking at the jubilant faces of his assembled cadets,

"Captain just announced it, we're going to dock with the Homestead!" Dyrion, the tallest cadet in the red team said,

"And that is?" Tyr asked, remembering something about docking with something called the Homestead during the 0900 announcements, he had assumed it was a ship…

"The Daguerro base, it's an asteroid that used to be a mining colony. It was abandoned during the second upheaval, and we began using it as a mobile base since…" Ravelton said,

"Mobile?" he asked, the entire concept was laughable, a mobile asteroid…

"They stuck a singularity drive on it, it jumps from place to place every so often to keep its location a secret, and only the captains of the carriers know the locations." Cadet Chase said. They were all very excited by the prospect; it must be something big…

"Alright, we'll try and get in a few hours of flight time at least…"

"We're scheduled to jump in half an hour sir…" another cadet interjected, leaving his overwhelmed instructor to ponder the situation...

"Alright, alright, class is dismissed for today, we will pick up tomorrow…" he said, instantly the class cheered, laughing and generally rejoicing… which seemed to be the general behavior all over the ship, that was, before the power went out…

Stealth mode, a nasty operating procedure in which the ship using it, would shut down all power sources, engines, weapons, down to the last light bulb. Tyr didn't know why they had gone into this state, especially in range of a friendly base, but it couldn't be good. He wasn't allowed on the bridge, so he made his way to the Central Intelligence Center, one of the few places that would still have power.

Walking into the room, he saw the usual flurry of action, officer's going from console to console, taking readouts, or sending reports to the bridge.

"Why are we in Grey Alert?" he asked the CIC Commander,

"That…" The commander said, pointing at a monitor, which showed a very large ship, prowling through a much larger debris field. The ship was unmistakably similar to the Steel Fang they had encountered two days ago… for it had only been, two days…

"Where's Homestead?" He asked, but already knew the answer…

"All over the sector." The commander said dejectedly…

"Early this morning, we were moving in towards the Homestead base, when our sensors detected the presence of a very large vessel moving in a debris field that used to be the Homestead base. The vessel was confirmed to be one of the so called, 'Steel Teeth' that the Alexandrian navy has fielded against us, this one much larger then the one we fought. At 2100 hours, it left the area. We are currently engaged in search and rescue operations, several larger sections of the base are actively emitting distress signals. I know many of you had family aboard the base, Reis willing, they might have survived the attack." The captain said over the intercom, the entire ship quiet, even the rhythmic thump of the engines seemed to quiet. "All non-essential staff have been given leave for the rest of the day, to see after personal affairs. I ask that, if such is your way, that you pray for the lost souls aboard the base, the rest I will hope will join me, in keeping them in our thoughts…. Thank you."

"We confirmed that the station was destroyed by a massive kinetic weapon, intelligence reports confirm that it was a Ream Weapon, which is for those who don't know, a MAC Slug, fired after a ball of superheated plasma, which melts the armor of a target before impact." The captain said to the assembled officers, Tyr among them. "I am sure you all see the significance of this, allowing the Alexandrians to develop such weapons simply won't due any longer, so, as the only command officer in the area, I am going to lead a strike force against the heart of their research operation, which is located in the Inelia System."

"We will use fighters, to take out the Fusion Generators, otherwise we will never get close enough to destroy the station, which is armed with several high power rail guns."

Tyr knew such a mission would be heavily reliant on fighters, and the only fighter capable of carrying the load out was the Aurora, there for it did not come as a surprise when…

"Tyr will fly his Aurora Attack craft past the station defenses, and destroy the cooling vents, which will cause the generator to overload rather quickly. Two shrike fighters will escort him to the actual station, but only the Aurora will be swift enough to get past the flak wall."

As the briefing moved on, he lost interest, his part, was to destroy the generator, and get out before the fleet moved in to destroy the station without being fired upon by the rail cannons, which required the massive fusion generators for power. Fairly simple.

The briefing ended three hours later, most of the attendees feeling better about the current situation. Alexandria had hit them hard, very hard, so they would hit them back. The Alexandrian Research and Development station was the source of many of the Daguerro Liberation Force's woes. Churning out new weapons at an astounding rate, it was by far the biggest threat to them. The DLF was not stagnant in designing new weapons themselves, but they didn't even come close to the operating budget of the Inelia Station.

"No No No! The connection lines go to junction three, not four! Four controls the power!" came one of the engineer's voices at the end of the hallway. Tyr hadn't noticed where he was going, and had ended up in one of the hallways that was being outfitted with the emitters taken from the other ship.

By the bulkhead, three engineering officers were installing the devices, a dark grey slab that didn't quite match the steel bulkhead. He could remember seeing the reports that had come out of the ship they had crippled, field generators, flexible metals, and even some things that couldn't be figured out.

Walking down to the hanger, he saw the engineering crew swarming over all the fighters, checking and rechecking ammo, instruments, equipment, down to the very last weld and bolt. In the middle of all the shrikes, he saw his Aurora, his name written in red below the cockpit, and what had to be miles of computer wire strewn all over the place. Unlike the Shrike Fighters, which relied on hydraulics and levers, the Aurora was completely fly by wire, all of its systems slaved to one of the two flight computers, which worked in a network to allow the complicated craft to fly.

Looking over the weapon list, he noted that there were no nuclear rockets or devices that could cause devastating damage to the base.

"No Nukes?" he asked the quartermaster, who was overseeing the installation of several larger skimmer missiles into the missile bays of the Aurora.

"No Sir, the Alexandrian radiation alarms would detect them before you even entered the system. A hot nuke is the equivalent of a long range beacon in open space." She said, taking off her cap to wipe her brow. He couldn't blame her, it was hot in the deck, what with almost a hundred torches fixing up the fighters, and fifty reactors running at maximum to charge batteries, the intense heat was getting him too, lucky he wasn't doing any of the manual labor here.

Looking over the fighter, all of its ports and holds being opened, he saw several things that hadn't been in the Manuals. Sensors that looked far to advanced to be the RCT-1446 Models that were listed, thick fiber optic cables extending to focus lens in the front, which seemingly connected to nothing but a black box, which had been confirmed to be nothing but a superconductor. All sorts or weird things that the engineering crews had discovered, but didn't know how or why they worked.

"Specialist, could you send me everything you know about the black box on the Auroras?" he asked the same quartermaster, whose team was enjoying a small break from their work.

"I can ask Sebois, he has all the readouts, been trying to make sense of them for some time now too. It doesn't even collect normal energy, we tried, it seems to be an attachment for something else, the Auroras were rushed into service, so they might have been some failed research and development experiments that they decided to leave in… At least, that's what Sebois says."

"Thank you Specialist." He said, leaving as she ordered the ammunition officers back to work.

Sitting down in his quarters, he looked around; he had always hated the Alexandrian Empire, not the people, but the ideals they, and he at one time, had been forced to fight for… was it worth killing hundreds of scientists and their families for?

But then again, he didn't really have a choice, the Inelia station churned out new weapons and ships at an astounding rate, the Aurora was designed and prototyped in a mere two months, and it was a reasonable thought that it was in fact the Inelia station that had come up with the entire concept of the Teeth.

And it wasn't like the scientists were forced to work there, they could just as easily have sat out the war, but they had chosen to take the job, a job that paid little, with few benefits, to serve a rotten Queen and parliament.

There came a loud knock on his door, but he was too lost in his thoughts to notice, it was only when whoever it was knocked a second time, that Tyr reacted, walking to the door, he unlocked it with the press of the pad to the right, and it slid open… there was no one there, the corridor was empty, turning around to go back inside, he saw his door had been covered in blood…

"Where did the guards disappear to?" Tyr asked, he hadn't been without at least two burly marine guards all day,

"We don't know, they haven't checked back into their racks yet, probably off drunk in one of the ship's bars." Tyr had been seeing more and more of the Chief Quartermaster these days, the grey haired woman was also the chief investigator on the ship, and had been put in charge of the investigation. "Someone doesn't want you to go on the mission, they're content to either scare you, or kill you."

"We'll position two more guards here tonight, and find the ones that went AWOL, in the meantime, I suggest you report to the Hanger Deck, and prepare for the mission. We launch fighters in 57 minutes."


	6. Chapter 5: Memories at Inelia Station

Chapter 5: Memories at Inelia Station

"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

That's right folks, after such a long time under the thumb of work and school, I'm back and with a vengeance, and with my apologies for not releasing this chapter with the note that I'd be gone for a while, I found myself under a steadily building mound of work, and decided to cut out the non-essentials… I have to say, my writing style has become a bit more conservative since, not necessarily a good thing, it's from all these AP papers… Teaching us to write 'properly'… bah, I'm a fiction writer, give me some made up words and acronyms and I'll be fine… But enough about me, back to the show…

Status Check… SysRed

MainPwr… Online

MemDump… Complete

Syscheck… Done

Status Check… SysYellow

MYSTEng… Online

BlackBallProg… Online

System Ready… SysGreen

"She's hot flight control, awaiting launch orders…"

"Shrike 112 and 114 are hot, awaiting launch orders flight control…"

"Shrike 112, 114, and Aurora 1, you are cleared to launch, good hunting."

The familiar G-Forces slammed the three pilots into their chairs the moment they pressed the afterburner button on the control sticks… Sending their craft through the launch tubes on the side of the ship, steadily building up speeds of almost .4 light speed, or 2.675 multiplied by 10 to the eighth power in terms of Miles per Hour… The whole number being 267537600 Miles Per Hour… The fastest speeds the tiny fighters were capable of without shaking themselves to pieces, or overwhelming the inertial dampeners and killing the three pilots…

In the distance, the tiny red planetoid that was Galla Prime, the planetoid the Inelia Station orbited… Already bits of radio chatter were coming in over unsecured channels, snippets of engineer reports, bits of idle chit-chat, even a radio drama…

"Sir, radar is picking up two blips ahead; we don't have time to evade…" One of the Shrike pilots announced over the radio,

"We need to hit them before they can check in, no missiles." Tyr responded, "Hopefully they won't be missed until we have hit the station."

"Roger." Both pilots complied, and within seconds, they opened fire on the unsuspecting patrol craft, aiming their shots precisely they were able to slice into the frail glass cockpits and avoid the fuel tanks which would have been like a signal flare for the station… the enemy pilots were killed instantly. "Enemy units neutralized."

"Good job, we should be getting close to the station by now." He said… now the planetoid was large, and he could make out the individual craters on its surface, even some massive habitat domes which glinted in the sunlight…

The two escorts suddenly seemed to disappear from his sides, they had turned off their systems and cut their engines, they were too close to the station now, and it was up to Tyr to destroy the station. He reduced his speed to Military Standard, much less than the Aurora was capable of, but he didn't want to be incoming at high speed, that was an obvious aggressive action, and getting close to the target would require them to believe he was a friendly.

The station had once been a simple outpost, but over a period of twenty years it had been granted many upgrades and eventually those modules had been surrounded by a massive shell, creating the massive complex. The station still used the old Plasma cores though, they were too integral, too central, to replace with something newer. This presented a strike force with an opportunity, as the cores required massive cooling vents which presented easy targets.

"Aurora fighter, please identify yourself." Came a tired, lazy voice over the radio, Tyr didn't respond, instead he sent up a static feedback, sending it back across the radio hoping to create the impression of radio problems. "Aurora fighter, please switch to laser communication." The voice came, more alert now that the melancholy had been broken. Switching to laser, the computer began to feed the station's computers false information, damage readouts confirming that the radio was non-functional, and other damages that resulted from a skirmish. "Aurora, we have received your damage reports and we've opened a spot in bay two, you may proceed." The voice came, calming down.

Lining the fighter in a textbook perfect landing pattern, Tyr began programming his missiles. The cooling vents which released excess plasma and heat were on the bottom of the station. Guarding them was a nasty Flak cannon which would not allow him to get close. On the HUD Tyr selected the two missiles that had the speed to hit the cannon system before it could turn around and hit him.

They were called Skipper Missiles, because of the way they skipped in and out of sensor sweeps. Flak cannons, which relied on sensors to acquire targets were confused by them, and the missiles themselves were fast enough to be too hard to hit if the cannon was being manually controlled.

"Four kilometers to target." The computer chimed in, the skipper missiles were being readied as it spoke, the reduced speed making what should have been a few second journey a nerve wracking experience. Tyr couldn't remember the last time he flew so slowly, but he was trying to maintain the image of a fighter limping home, and he had to give himself some credit at this point, he was certainly selling it to the Alexandrians.

"Two kilometers to target." The computer chimed in again, the fighter pilot began to ready the systems he would bring back online, he took a deep breath before switching back on the capacitor system that ran the cannons in the fighter.

"Eight-Hundred Meters to target, enemy countermeasure system is now in range." The computer told him, which meant that not only could the flak cannons shoot at him, but he could shoot back if need be. It was now or never. Flipping the toggles on the combat displays, he twisted the red safety locks. With a shake and a rumble the fighter's wings slid out into combat readiness, deadly skipper missiles hung from the extended missile bays on its underside and the nose cannon was ready. It would only be a few moments before the station would realize the little fighter had become armed, so Tyr flipped the safety catch on the stick and depressed the missile launch button twice, sending the skipper missiles screaming off at the Flak cannon.

"Aurora Fighter, we've detected energy emissions-" The voice of the enemy radio operator came in before cutting off in surprise, "Incoming Missiles!" the officer yelled, not switching the radio off. Tyr watched with some satisfaction when the missiles struck the Flak turret, first blowing up the cannon, with the second hitting the octagonal hard point that secured it to the station, sending it careening into space before exploding violently. Throwing the throttle forward he sent the tiny craft shooting forward, avoiding a yellow starburst of flak that exploded where it had been seconds before. The stations other cannons had come online and were targeting him, but there was a hole in the defenses, and the small fighter slipped through, peppering the side of the structure with cannon fire. Whole strings of lights on the station went out as power conduits were hit, there were hundreds of micro depressurizations which sent atmospheric gasses into space.

Twisting the fighter's nose down, it pulled itself right up next to the hull of the massive research station. Mere meters from the hull plating, the Flak cannons couldn't hit him anymore. Reaching the end of the structure, Tyr hit the reverse thrusters, slowing his fighter before twisting it upwards and pointing the nose up into the cooling vents.

The radio operator still hadn't switched off his communication link, and the pilot could hear everything that was going on inside the station, he could hear the emergency klaxons suddenly switch to a high pitched whine. The same whine he had heard many years ago in his childhood…

Tyr hadn't always grown up in the Alexandrian provinces as his file said. When he was a small child he had lived on an refugee fleet that moved from uninhabited planet to uninhabited planet, scratching out an existence by mining resources and selling them to a few of the outermost corporate enterprises which had avoided being nationalized by the Alexandrian war machine. These small companies routinely sold the newly processed metals or components to some of the Daguerro forces, or even the Alexandrians themselves, both of which used them to construct even more fighters, bombers, cruisers, and battleships.

The fleet in question had been sought after by the Alexandrians because of the number of deserters who had found refuge on the ships as crewman. Tyr had only been four or five, but he still remembered the ship hull buckling, the cannon rounds slicing through the hulls of the unarmed cargo ships like paper, shredding people apart and damaging ship systems… the high pitched whine when the captain ordered evacuation of the ship and the sinking feeling knowing his parents would never follow him as he drifted off alone in the escape pod through the blackness of space.

The little Burmecian tumbled through space for almost three days in his life pod, curled up in a ball. An Alexandrian salvage team found him, emancipated and dehydrated, almost dead, and brought him aboard where he was in the sick bay in a state of catatonia for almost two weeks. When he had recovered he spent many days wandering the corridors of the vessel, he had taken a particular interest in the ship itself, watching the various crewman performing their various duties or even exploring some of the newly salvaged ships the Salvage craft brought onboard from time to time, he was a quick study and was soon helping the salvage crew salvage hard to reach components or crawl through air ducts to open doors that were damaged. However, he hadn't spoken a single word in that entire time until the day he was called by the Captain of the salvage vessel, a kind, tall, dark skinned human by the name of William Tash, to meet a 'guest'.

The Alexandrian Captain sat next to an Admiral who was visiting the fleet when the tiny Burmecian was ushered into the room by a shipboard marine. The admiral looked sternly at the little creature, at the time, almost twenty years before, the Burmecian peoples were regarded as nothing more than a labor force, but social forces were on the move, and more and more freedoms were being gained. The admiral turned out to be a relative of Tash, they had the same brown skin, and the same features, but this Tash didn't have any of the kindness of his younger sibling and his hair was flecked with streaks of gray that ran far ahead of his actual age.

"He's a scrawny little rat isn't he?" The admiral asked nastily,

"We think he's about three or four years old, but we haven't been able to ask him, he hasn't said a word since he came onboard." The captain said, motioning Tyr to take a seat, which he did, reluctantly. "Is he what you were looking for?"

"Possibly… You told me he was smart, engaging, and interested in ship functions, but all I see is a quivering, mute little child. It's costly to train these children, to house them and educate them; a dud is an expensive throw-away."

"Leaving him on the ship is a waste of such a bright little creature…" The captain said "I'm positive, just from what the crew has said about him."

"And yet." The Admiral said, smiling like the cat that ate the canary, "The ability to mimic the actions of others doesn't indicate intelligence, and if he can't speak I can't think of any way to prove it." The captain turned to look at Tyr, leaning over so he was eye to eye.

"My brother has been looking for children about your age for a new wing of the naval corps, the Navy wants to train some of your people to pilot ships like the ones you play around in the cargo bay. I want to send you with him, to enter the academy, and learn to fly those ships. Do you understand?" The kinder Tash asked, Tyr nodded, "Good… Robert, do you know how to use a Logic Cube?" The Captain asked his brother, pulling one from his pocket and turning to the admiral again.

"Never could figure those things out, thinking on one plane is hard enough, but getting all six of those sides to light up was too difficult… my old flight instructor used to make our class screw around with them every night, why?" He asked, slightly thrown off guard by the question. The younger Tash handed the cube to the tiny Burmecian, who gazed at the cube, which had its various sides divided into squares, some lit, some dim.

The admiral laughed, standing up and grabbing his jacket, "I always thought you had a funny sense of humor Will, dragging me all the way out here to watch some little rat play with a block. He still ignored the Burmecian, and was now walking towards the door, "Next time you have the idea of playing a prank on someone pick one of your engineers, I've got too much on my plate to-"

A high pitched beeping noise began emanating from the chair the little Nezumi sat in, disrupting the Admiral's tirade. Tyr swiveled it around and hopped up, handing it to the Captain, who was now the one with the smile on his face, the sides of the Logic Cube were all lit up and flashing red.

"Just as I figured." Will said, throwing it up into the air before catching it over and over,

"But… How?" The Admiral managed to spit out, red in the face.

"As I've maintained, he is much smarter than you give him credit for, and I'm more certain than ever he will make a fine Shrike Pilot." Will said, settling into his chair again. The admiral turned towards the still standing Burmecian.

"We'll see." The admiral stated gruffly, "We leave in fifteen minutes, I'll be waiting." The admiral said before storming out of the office. Captain William turned to smile at the little Burmecian.

"I know you won't want to leave, you feel like there's nowhere else for you to go, trust me, I understand, but in three months time this ship is heading into port for one last time before she is to be decommissioned, that means they're going to salvage this ship just as we do to all the others we come across. My crew and I are being reassigned to new ships, there won't be anywhere for you to go." He said sadly, "I'm going to miss the ship, and the crew, just as much as you will, but my biggest regret will be to never hold a conversation with someone held in such regard by so many of the Engineering staff. For, I don't even know your name…" He said standing and ruffling the child's hair. "But the admiral awaits, go outside and have the marine waiting outside pack your stuff." The captain was stern now, ushering the little Nezumi towards the door.

"T-Tyr." The little Burmecian stuttered, looking up at the Human, whose initial shock at the simply act of speaking had just set in.

"Huh?" He asked, kneeling down again.

"M-My n-name." Tyr stuttered, shifting uncomfortably. "I-Is Tyr R-Redblade…" The Captain smiled, placing his arm over the child's shoulder,

"I'm sure we'll meet again Tyr..." he said before leaving the child in the hands of the marine. In all his years in the Naval Corps, he never had seen the Captain again.

Flipping the missile launch safety catch up again, he loosed two more missiles up into the vents, they screamed off before impacting the fragile innards, exploding and twisting the fragile coolant pipes and vents into a molten blob, already the sensors on Tyr's fighter was picking up increasing heat inside the building.

Flipping the fighter up and around again, he threw the throttle up again, blasting away from the soon to be destroyed station. His afterburners flared bright yellow and fiery red as the Aurora's speed began to pick up, suddenly a jolt struck the fighter, the tail section had caught some flak and it violently rocked the fighter, sending it careening down towards the atmospheric bubbles established on the surface of the planet. Struggling to regain control, he knew he was going to collide with the glass sphere no matter what he did, and brought his finger onto the trigger. Squeezing it, the cannons began firing round after round at the fragile bubbles, which cracked and exploded inwards before violently decompressing, shattering the entire complex. Tyr knew he had just ended the lives of everyone who had been outside a sealed structure but was able to regain control, and brought the smoking fighter back up…

The station exploded violently as all three generators lost containment and the reactive fuels combusted, spewing wreckage in all directions, one particularly large piece smashed into the experimental shipyard, smashing its fragile beams and ruining its operational capacity. Alexandrian ships were drawn to the wreckage like moths to a flame, an area like this was meant to be under the highest security, how could anything of this magnitude have occurred? That was the question being asked by admiral after admiral all over, the station was a huge loss, and many of the Empire's top scientists had been in the supposedly hidden, supposedly secure system, developing the latest weapons. For the first time in a long time, the Empire had suffered a major defeat, for the first time in a long time, the forces of freedom seemed to stand a chance.

From the Author:

Chapter 5 is completed after a year; sorry for the major delay I was caught up in many real life events. I personally think the whole flashback scene was one of the most touching scenes I've ever written. Hope everyone thinks it was worth the wait, Read and Review!


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